From Co to Mercado, why Tsinoy Jose became Rizal

TUGUEGARAO CITY , Philippines   â€“ Had his ancestral family name been carried through, national hero Jose Rizal would have been known as Jose Co, the great-great grandson of Siang Co and Zun Nio from Fujian, China.

Although Rizal now has several streets, provinces and barrios named after him for his martyrdom, many still wonder why his father had a different surname.

Jose Protacio Mercado y Alonso, popularly known as Jose Rizal was the seventh of 11 children of Francisco Engracio Mercado and Teodora Alonso of Biñan, Laguna.

The national hero traced his roots to the village of Sionque in the district of Chin-Chew, Fujian.

From Fujian, Siang Co and Zun Nio’s son, Lam Co migrated to the Philippines in 1690. At 35, Co was baptized into the Catholic faith in Binondo, acquiring his Christian name - Domingo Co - and married a Chinese mestiza, Ines de la Rosa.

Co was close friends with Spanish friars Francisco Marquez and Juan Caballero who had enticed him to settle in the friars’ estate in San Isidro Labrador in Biñan, where he helped develop the irrigation system in the area.

The union of Co and Dela Rosa produced a son in 1731. The offspring acquired the Christian name Francisco Mercado. Francisco was derived from one of Co’s friar friends while Mercado meant “market” in Spanish, signifying his future job as trader.

The young Francisco married Bernarda Monica, a native of the nearby hacienda in San Pedro, Laguna and bore children Clemente and Juan, who would be Rizal’s grandfather.

In 1783, Francisco Mercado was elected “gobernadorcillo” (municipal mayor) of Biñan while Rizal’s grandfather Juan Mercado was elected “capitan del pueblo” of the same town in 1808, 1813 and 1823.

Juan Mercado married Cirila Alejandro, a Chinese mestiza, and had 13 children, one of them Rizal’s father Francisco Engracio Mercado.

Rizal’s grandfather died when Francisco Engracio was only eight, and the child helped his widowed mother run the family business.

Francisco Engracio was studying Latin and Philosophy at the Colegio de San Juan de Letran when he met his wife Teodora Alonso y Realonda who was studying in Colegio de Sta. Rosa. Francisco Engracio and Teodora raised their family in the rented estate from the Dominican Order and produced rice, corn and sugarcane.

In 1848, Governor General Narciso Claveria decreed that Filipinos and Chinese immigrants adopt Spanish family names and Francisco Mercado opted to adopt “Ricial” which means “green fields.” However, his new surname confused many of his business associates and patrons, forcing him to change it to “Rizal Mercado.”

In 1865 during his studies in Ateneo Municipal de Manila, Jose Protacio Rizal Mercado dropped his second last name to disassociate himself from his brother Paciano who was then under surveillance of Spanish authorities because of his links with the martyred Filipino priests Mariano Gomez, Jose Burgos and Jacinto Zamora. Rizal also needed a fresh identity so he could travel freely abroad without the hassles of Spanish inquisition.